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If politics is theatre, climate politics is a family drama. For the last decade we've watched two rival households having the same endless argument. Political journos call it the 'climate wars' and mostly focus on the lead actors standing in the spotlight - in the Western narrative tradition, characters drive events. Almost no one has noticed the scenery change. Stagehands dismantled the backdrop years ago, but politicians have carried on as if the same circumstances existed when they started this charade.

Here we go again. Just a few days after the historic Paris Agreement on climate change entered force, another Republican climate denier has snatched the White House. Donald Trump isn't just a closet sceptic, paying lip-service to climate change while doing nothing about it. He's an out-and-proud conspiracy theorist. All signs point to the US returning to its role as international climate saboteur, and for much the same reasons: Republican paranoia over the economic rise of China.

The UN Climate Change Conference in Paris is set to become the last opportunity for meaningful global action. The signs so far bear optimism, as the impetus for a binding international agreement to tackle the severity and effects of climate change has taken a turn. In order to better understand why, and appreciate the difference that a few years can make, it is worth revisiting why Copenhagen was such a disaster. The most meaningful difference between then and now involves leaders.

Countries including the US, Russia and Japan refuse to sign any binding treaty to significantly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions unless China does the same. Their simplistic argument that China is now the number one emitter in the world overlooks important data.

As a subject that inflames passion on both sides of the debate, meat eating is up there with abortion and religion. Yet animal agriculture is responsible for a quarter of all emissions. Labor's carbon price is unlikely to produce significant results while animal farmers are exempt.

There is nothing radical about fixing a carbon price. While our politicians and pundits quibble, the rest of the world is already implementing its commitments. Gillard's greatest challenge in selling her carbon scheme is in normalising it in the public mind.

Voters who'd otherwise position themselves between the conservative Liberals and radical Greens are stranded. They are looking for leaders who would rather lose big on matters of principle than win by a margin on compromised policy. History has shown Labor to be the natural home for such leaders.

The new Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Christiana Figueres is well qualified
to help heal the wounds of Copenhagen. If the West can learn the lessons of those failed talks and move forward with modesty, flexibility and sensitivity, we may hope for progress.

Columban missionary priest and environmental activist Sean McDonagh reports from the climate convention in Copenhagen, where negotiators have been told to 'go very far and very fast' and turn Copenhagen into 'Hopenhagen'.

The community is divided over the Government's revised climate change strategy. Australia has the most visible evidence of climate change, which makes it all the more urgent for us to provide leadership on the world stage.

Kevin Rudd's China visit is proceeding brilliantly. But by announcing Australia's interest in a Security Council candidacy to the UN Secretary-General, he may have shown his hand before Australia is able to undo the damage the previous government did to our reputation in the
UN.

The United Nations estimates that 5,000 honour killings occur annually. These killings are a rebellion against modernity, attempts to hold on to older traditional
values, especially concerning social relations and sexuality.